The post Oregon Bootleg Fire, nation’s largest, keeps doubling in size first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Riot declared, National Guard called to downtown Portland first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Justice Department explored possible criminal or civil charges against local officials in Portland, Ore., after weeks of clashes between federal law enforcement and violent protesters, spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Fox News.

Kupec declined to comment on whether the department ultimately will bring charges. She said there were no specific charges in mind, rather, DOJ officials were looking at the way Portland officials “were handling, or not handling” the riots and violence.

PORTLAND MAN ALLEGEDLY SET DUMPSTER ON FIRE ALONGSIDE POLICE BUILDING WITH 19 PEOPLE INSIDE 

The spokeswoman also did not confirm whether DOJ officials were focusing on specific city officials. The office of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

Separately, Justice Department officials disputed news reports that Attorney General William Barr told prosecutors in the department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring charges against Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan for allowing some residents to establish a protest zone this summer.

President Trump has criticized Democrats, and specifically, Wheeler, who he says have not done enough to stop nights of looting and unrest in cities across the U.S. Trump has called Wheeler a “wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor” and has said the city “will never recover with a fool for a Mayor….”

Just days after the death of George Floyd while in the custody of police in Minneapolis at the end of May, large demonstrations reached Portland’s streets and nightly clashes between protesters and police officers continued for over a month until federal law enforcement was sent in to protect federal properties.

After arriving over the July 4 weekend, federal officers with the U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies were told Portland police was explicitly ordered not to respond to the federal courthouse as hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside, some throwing bricks, rocks, and Molotov cocktails at officers, and not to assist federal officers who were sent to try to quell the unrest.

US ATTORNEY DENIES REPORT THAT BARR ASKED PROSECUTORS TO CONSIDER CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST DURKAN 

Federal law enforcement remained in the city for about four weeks until the Department of Homeland Security and Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown agreed on a plan to bring Oregon State Police into downtown Portland and for federal officers to begin leaving the city.

More than 100 people have been arrested in Portland on federal charges related to the unrest over the last few months. The FBI has said it was also shifting the agency’s resources to focus more heavily on violence and federal crimes committed during nearly three months of unrest during nightly racial injustice protests in the city that often ended in vandalism, clashes with police, and dozens of arrests.

Wheeler and Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell publicly clashed last week after the mayor ordered police to stop using CS or tear gas for crowd control. The Portland Police Bureau argued in a press release hours later that amid “repeated violence by a group of motivated and well-organized individuals” carried out for more than 100 consecutive nights, officers used tear gas to “disperse crowds only when there is a life safety event.”

“Most recently, it was used to disperse a crowd from which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at officers and ended up injuring a community member who was on fire,” the police bureau said, expressing regret that some gas seeped into nearby homes. “However, the community should be asking the rioters why they are committing violence that threatens the very lives of others nearby. When people gather lawfully, peacefully, there is no need for intervention by police, much less the use of CS gas.”

In an email to Lovell and assistant chiefs, Wheeler said: “While I do not often issue directives to the Portland Police Bureau, when I do I expect them to be followed. Civilian oversight of the Police Bureau is set in the Portland City Charter, and every sworn officer takes an oath to abide by that charter. Professionalism and public service demand nothing less,” a copy obtained by the Portland Tribune said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The mayor’s office added in a statement: “PPB’s decision to put out a press release questioning my direction was a serious breach of protocol and an inappropriate use of City communications resources. I made it clear, in no uncertain terms, to the Chief that this cannot happen again.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/portland-riots-justice-department-considered-pursuing-charges-against-city-officials-in-violent-unrest

The post Portland riots: Justice Department considered pursuing charges against city officials in violent unrest first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Others have continued to argue it doesn’t exist or has been blown out of proportion.

After months of daily unrest and violent crime surges in major American cities, some media figures finally felt compelled to ditch the “mostly peaceful” canard and discuss the violence — only to pin the blame on nebulous actors such as Russia and white supremacists.

Cities such as Portland, Ore., which has seen a spike in shootings and an unrelenting wave of arson and vandalism, and Kenosha, Wis., which suffered nearly $2 million in riot damage last week, have borne the consequences of daily protests transforming into nightly chaos. But rather than reporting on the groups and actors we know to be behind the surge in lawlessness, pundits are choosing to push their own recycled conspiracies.

Take MSNBC anchor Joy Reid, who warned — “without evidence,” as the pundit class has become so fond of saying — that the unrest was being “perpetrated” by Trump supporters and “white nationalist mobs.”

“The ‘riots’ are not Black Lives Matter marches gone wrong. Armed white nationalists are mobbing these cities to take advantage of protests and scare fellow white people into quietly siding with them. It’s an old, tried and true strategy: using fear & anti-blackness for politics,” Reid tweeted.

Reid’s diagnosis ignores that leftist agitators had been torching and vandalizing businesses and assaulting people at random for months in Portland before Trump supporters showed up in any significant number. She also has the cause and effect exactly backwards in the most recent instance of political violence, the one she was ostensibly referring to, in which a Trump supporter was shot and killed on Saturday by a suspect who has publicly declared his allegiance to Antifa and who has the balled fist of the Black Power movement tattooed on his neck.

Rather than accept and report on the fact that there is a growing contingent of black-bloc anarchists intent on tearing up American cities, CNN’s chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, went looking for a familiar — yet conveniently distant — culprit.

Bash asked Adam Schiff — the same Adam Schiff who breathlessly claimed for more than a year that he had seen “evidence” of Trump-Russia collusion, even after closed-door hearings found none — whether Russia “is trying to fuel some of the civil unrest.” The California congressman did not bat an eye: “We have to worry about their aggravating these tensions in our cities,” he stated. While Russia is undoubtedly trying to help along the self-destructive elements now ascendant on the American left, it isn’t Russian meme-makers who are burning down city blocks.

The obscurantism isn’t confined to talking heads and detached national politicians, either. In May, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey blamed “white supremacists, members of organized crime, out-of-state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors” for the violence in his city, despite arrest records indicating his claims were baseless.

Many have pointed to Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who is charged with murder for killing two men in Kenosha, as a totem of white supremacy, and proof that President Trump is baiting his supporters into a “race war.” According to these analysts, Rittenhouse was the kind of white supremacist who kills white people hours after showing up to a demonstration with the express purpose of providing medical care to injured BLM protesters.

And for every Kyle Rittenhouse, there are dozens of far-left activists and provocateurs — many of whom have lengthy criminal records — who have been arrested for instigating chaos, as journalists such as Andy Ngo have meticulously catalogued. Even as the New York Times attempted to explain away the violence as the inevitable result of “right-wing activists . . . bent on countering the racial justice protests with an opposing vision of America,” it quoted a Portland activist “who helps organize security” for Black Lives Matter protests and carries a baton and a Taser.

The tactics the BLM enforcer discusses mirror those discussed on Telegram — an anonymous messaging app used to orchestrate protests — and anarchist websites such as CrimetheInc, which provides anonymous first-person accounts of riots, illustrating how many of the “protesters” actively seek conflict with police. Diagrams shared on far-left Telegram channels and reviewed by National Review instruct the woke how to construct “shield wall formations” and counsel them to consult “gear checklists,” which include weapons and defensive combat equipment, before heading out to the day’s “mostly peaceful” protest. The diagrams also include descriptions of various “protest roles” such as “range soldiers,” whose responsibility it is to throw projectiles at police, and “fire mages,” who set fire to objects and launch flaming projectiles.

“There is room for chanting and dancing and joyful noises and there is also room for rage. We make that space for each other,” one woman told the Times in July, before the alleged appearance of the lunatic white supremacists who have supposedly disrupted the formerly peaceful protests. “I don’t consider property destruction violence,” another added. “Violence is when you attack a person or another living, breathing creature on this planet. Windows don’t cry and they can’t die.”

Not content to attribute the recent wave of political violence to nefarious foreigners or white supremacists, some have continued to argue it doesn’t exist or has been blown out of proportion. Former FBI agent and current CNN correspondent Josh Campbell falls into the former camp, tweeting a picture of an idyllic Portland park during his lunch hour on Tuesday as proof that “the city is not under siege and buildings are not burning to the ground.” He made no mention of the situation the night before, which police declared a riot after activists broke windows and attempted to start a fire in a store on the ground floor of the condominium building of Democratic mayor Ted Wheeler.

Good morning from wonderful Portland, where the city is not under siege and buildings are not burning to the ground. I also ate my breakfast burrito outside today and so far haven’t been attacked by shadowy gangs of Antifa commandos.

---

Josh Campbell@joshscampbell

Update: Downtown Portland remains intact with no raging fires. There are some routine contrails (not chemtrails!) above the city from arriving flights, but no indication any of those airplanes are bringing in brigades of Antifa commandos.

---

Later in the day, Campbell conceded that “there is nightly violence,” only to argue that “neither local nor federal leaders seem to have a clue how to stop it.”

---

Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/media-admit-riots-real-shift-blame-to-white-nationalists-and-russians/

[Disclaimer]

The post Talking Heads Finally Accept Reality of Riots — Only to Pin Blame on White Nationalists and Russians first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

More than half a million people in the US state of Oregon are fleeing deadly wildfires that are raging across the Pacific Northwest, authorities say.

Fanned by unusually hot, dry winds, dozens of fires are sweeping the state, and at least one is being treated as suspected arson.

Governor Kate Brown said the exact number of fatalities was not yet known, though at least four were confirmed.

More than 100 wildfires are currently scorching 12 western US states.

The worst affected are Oregon, California and Washington, where entire towns have been destroyed.

• A really simple guide to climate change
• In pictures: Oregon fires force thousands to flee
• Smoke from California wildfires turns skies orange

Some 4.4 million acres have been razed, according to the National Interagency Fire Center – an area larger than Connecticut and slightly smaller than Wales.

Climate scientist Daniel Swain told the New York Times it was “really shocking” to see so many large and destructive fires burning at once.

“I’ve spoken to maybe two dozen fire and climate experts over the last 48 hours and pretty much everyone is at a loss of words. There’s certainly been nothing in living memory on this scale.”

What is the latest in Oregon?

On Thursday evening, the Oregon Office of Emergency Management confirmed the latest evacuation figures, which amount to more than 10% of the state’s 4.2 million population.

Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, said: “We have never seen this amount of uncontained fire across the state… This will not be a one-time event. Unfortunately, it is the bellwether of the future. We’re feeling the acute impacts of climate change.”

The victims in Oregon include a 12-year-old boy and his grandmother, who died in a wildfire near Lyons, 70 miles (110km) south of Portland.

Wyatt Tofte, his dog, and his grandmother Peggy Mosso died in the family car trying to escape the blaze. The child’s mother was severely burnt.

Lonnie Bertalotto, Ms Mosso’s son and Wyatt’s uncle, confirmed the deaths in a Facebook post. “Don’t take anything in life for granted and make the best of everyday,” he wrote.

A colour infrared satellite image shows destroyed homes after the Alameda Fire in Phoenix, Oregon: burned vegetation and property appear grey, surviving vegetation is in red – Reuters

Rich Tyler, a spokesman for the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office, told Reuters news agency: “Every fire is investigated for the possibility of arson so that we can either determine it is or rule it out.”

One of the most destructive blazes, the Almeda Fire, which started in Ashland near the California border, is being treated as suspicious. It has been linked to at least two deaths and destroyed hundreds of homes in the towns of Phoenix and Talent.

But rumours that fires in the Douglas County area were started by members of the left-wing “anti-fascist” or right-wing Proud Boys groups have been discounted by police.

The wildfires have also prompted mass evacuations in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon’s largest city. According to the Portland Tribune newspaper, the pollution in the city on Thursday was ranked highest in the world, above Jakarta, Indonesia; Delhi, India; and Lahore, Pakistan.

Where are people evacuating?

Officials have set up 19 temporary shelters across the state for people fleeing the fires. Local news station KOIN have published a list of the centres.

Evacuation shelters have been asked to adopt “policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19”, adding that authorities should try to set up dormitories of fewer than 50 people. “Large congregate shelters should be a last resort,” a release said.

People should also consider “sheltering in place” due to the pandemic. The release added that anyone who spends time in a shelter should self-isolate once they leave as they may have been exposed to the virus.

What is the situation elsewhere?

In Washington state, a one-year-old boy died and his parents were in a critical condition after smoke and flames overwhelmed them as they tried to escape the state’s largest wildfire, in the northern county of Okanogan.

A fire also destroyed most homes in the eastern town of Malden. Police had run through the streets shouting at residents to flee as the flames closed in.

In California, authorities in Butte County north of Sacramento have found 10 bodies in the last two days, and there are fears the toll will rise as 16 people remain unaccounted for.

There, some 64,000 people were under evacuation orders while 14,000 firefighters battled 29 major fires. An evacuation order has been issued for the community of Paradise which was largely destroyed in the 2018 Camp fire.

Six of the top 20 largest fires in California’s history have occurred this year. “If you are in denial about climate change, come to California,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in August.

A study in 2019 warned that climate change has made severe wildfires more likely in California.

Saying goodbye to our first home

Sam Elm and her partner, Micah, lived in Phoenix, Oregon. Sam shared her experience fleeing from the wildfire – and saying goodbye to their home – with BBC OS.

A fire started in a nearby town and began encroaching. “It took our home,” she says. “It was an intense experience.”

“We were listening to the scanners… We were hearing it get closer and closer.

“At a certain point we got a call saying: ‘You need to leave right now.’ It was raining ash on – everything.”

As they were about to leave, Sam says her wife called her upstairs to a wall in their home decorated with the signatures of friends, and members of their community – which Sam says was a “point of pride” for them.

“She slams her hand on the wall – because we’ve never signed our own wall, because it was our house we lived in – she traced her hand, she slammed my hand on the wall, she traced my hand, she kissed me and said: ‘Don’t forget this was our first home. And we left.”

Sam Elm (left) and her wife Micah Elm had their first home burn down in a fire – Sam and Micah Elm

Sam adds that she and her wife were the lucky ones. “Not everybody got to say goodbye to their homes – we did. Our pets are with us. We know people whose pets got stuck in their houses…we know people that are missing.”

Sam and Micah are currently staying with a friend, hoping to get a hotel room through insurance.

But she doesn’t know what six months down the line looks like now that they’ve lost their home. She says she has no clue “how to traverse any of this”.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54113416

The post Oregon wildfires: Half a million people flee dozens of infernos first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Federal authorities intervened after clashes between armed far-right groups, some with “ties to fascist” organizations, and anti-racism protesters near the Justice Center in downtown Portland, Oregon, saw rocks, mace and paint balls used, per the Oregonian.

Of note: Portland Police officers “remained at a distance … even as people beat others with sticks, and at least two right-wing activists brandished handguns,” the Washington Post reports. The police blamed limited resources in a statement on “why the events downtown were not declared a riot and why police did not intervene.”

Why it matters: Portland Police have frequently declared riots during unrest in the city since Black Lives Matter protests began 85 days ago, including on Friday.

What they’re saying: The police said Portland officers “have been the focus of over 80 days of violent actions directed at the police, which is a major consideration for determining if police resources are necessary to interject.”

• According to the police, there were “some physical interactions which quickly resolved themselves” during the two-hour standoff.

“Some members from both groups threw projectiles and deployed aerosols like pepper and bear spray at each other. At times, fireworks were thrown and smoke canisters were deployed. Each skirmish appeared to involve willing participants and the events were not enduring in time, so officers were not deployed to intervene.”

— Police statement

Source: https://www.axios.com/portland-far-right-clashes-no-riot-declared-0d29e6df-8db7-4dd2-a562-b2b3be2af818.html

The post Violence in Portland after far-right groups rally first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A riot was declared in Portland just after midnight Thursday morning after Mayor Ted Wheeler’s tense visit with protesters— where he was booed, told to resign, given a list of demands and tear-gassed by federal agents.

His visit ended with his security detail engaging in a struggle with protesters late Wednesday night as they worked to get the mayor to safety, a report said.

Earlier, he moved with protesters to the fence outside of the federal courthouse where he stood at the front and was tear-gassed along with the crowd, according to New York Times correspondent Mike Baker.

A riot has been declared outside the Justice Center. Disperse to the north and/or west. Disperse immediately. Failure to adhere to this order may subject you to arrest or citation, or riot control agents, including, but not limited to, tear gas and/or impact weapons.

---

Wheeler called the tear-gassing an “egregious overreaction,” telling Baker he didn’t see anything in the crowd that warranted the reaction by federal officers.

“This is not a de-escalation strategy,” he said. “This is flat-out urban warfare and it’s being brought on this country by the president and it’s got to stop now.”

PORTLAND BANS POLICE FROM WORKING WITH FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT 

As Wheeler left, a few protesters following him tried to push against his security team once he had entered a building. Others threw water bottles and other projectiles at the glass door, according to Baker.

---

Mike Baker@ByMikeBaker

·Jul 22, 2020

Replying to @ByMikeBaker

Mayor Wheeler with eyes closed, coughing, suffering from the tear gas.

“How does it feel, Teddy?” someone shouts.

Wheeler leaves the scene. Protesters throw water bottles at him and curse him. He manages to get inside a building after a scuffle between protesters and his security detail.

Portland’s City Council passed new policies on Wednesday that immediately bans all police bureau members from working with federal law enforcement and prevents them from intentionally arresting or using force on journalists and legal observers.

Wheeler had joined protesters downtown earlier in the evening for a listening session where he thanked them for opposing the Trump administration’s “occupation” of the city in the deployment of federal agents.

“I think what we’re doing tonight is actually the best thing we can do right now,” Wheeler told hundreds in the crowd after a protester asked how to get federal officers out of the city, according to KGW-TV. “Be here, be heard, be unified, and be clear. We didn’t want them, we didn’t ask for them, they’re not trained for what they’re being asked to do. And we want them to leave.”

Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters rally near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

---

Wheeler, who has repeatedly said he opposes the deployment of federal officers to the city, was nearly drowned out by shouts and jeers and calls to resign and was loudly booed when he told a protester that he didn’t support abolishing the police department.

He then addressed a much larger crowd from a raised balcony, saying “I am here tonight to stand with you.” He received some cheers when he chanted “Black lives matter!” with the crowd.

Some protesters also threw fireworks at the courthouse and tried to knock down the fencing erected outside.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, has been accused by some of not reining in local police, who have used tear gas multiple times before federal agents arrived early this month in response to nearly two months of nightly protests since George Floyd was killed. Others, including business leaders, have condemned Wheeler for not bringing the situation under control before the federal agents arrived.

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

---

Fox News’ David Aaro and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mike Baker@ByMikeBaker

---

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-mayors-security-teams-scuffles-with-protesters-after-listening-session

[Disclaimer]

The post Portland mayor tear-gassed by federal agents, riot declared first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Thanksgiving storm arrives in Northern California with ‘Bomb Cyclone’ in the Sierra first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

EUGENE, Ore. — There is traffic gridlock…

And then there are backups that stretch for 115 miles.

Nearly a foot of heavy, wet snow fell around the Eugene and southern Willamette Valley area Monday, toppling trees and power lines across I-5 in the area. As a result, a 94-mile stretch of the freeway was closed for over 10 hours, creating a massive 115-mile backup, according to an Oregon Department of Transportation spokesperson. For comparison, 115 miles is roughly the distance from Downtown Seattle to the Canadian border.

Drivers said road conditions were treacherous.

“It was snowing heavy. It was a mess,” said Victor Purpuree who got stuck in traffic driving up to Portland.

Purpuree said he was stuck in the closure area for 3 1/2 hours.

“It was really a flash blizzard as far as I’m concerned, but there is an awful lot of trucks off the side of the road that ran off the road, a lot of cars,” he said.

Drivers said the ice on the road was thick, causing drivers to skid off the road.

“It wasn’t just normal ice. You had a layer of it. Then you had up buildings of it. With rocks almost,” said Tim Dalessandro, a professional driver.

ODOT said it had to wait on utility crews to clear the roads of trees and downed power lines before drivers could be allowed onto the interstate. The freeway reopened by Tuesday morning but some lane closures remain.

Source: https://komonews.com/news/local/epic-gridlock-winter-storm-creates-115-mile-backup-along-snow-clogged-i-5-in-oregon

The post Epic Gridlock: Winter storm creates 115-mile backup along snow-clogged I-5 in Oregon first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Persistent, record-breaking heat and an extremely dry landscape set the stage for the Carr Fire—one of the most dangerous infernos that has claimed six lives and destroyed 874 structures across more than 98,000 acres.

In an image taken by a NASA satellite, there aren’t many clouds visible and those that can be seen are bright and white. The thick patches of smoke from the wildfires, typically grayish and tan in color, can be seen across a wide area of California and Oregon.

An image captured by NASA shows wildfires raging over California and Oregon.  (NASA)

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, 90 fires have already burned nearly 1 million acres of land in 14 different states. California, Oregon and Colorado account for about half of the land where fires are still blazing.

The Carr fire has been particularly ferocious.

“It’s ripping trees off the ground and throwing them across the street into homes,” Chad Carroll, a spokesman for CalFire, said Friday. “That’s pretty strange and unusual.”

Dr. Daniel Swain @Weather_West

The post California wildfires: Satellite imagery reveals shocking blanket of thick smoke over western US first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.